Heimarian Odyssey

Chapter 165: Glossaria Magica

Locke took the bottle of scorpiondrake venom and some unusable potions that he'd gotten from the casters in the mission along with him, went to the shop that Henry introduced to him and sold all of them off.

"Oh! The venom of a mid-ranked major monster?" An appraiser with a moustache assessed the venom with a silver needle. "It's high quality. I'll take it for 100 gold moores!" It was no surprise, given how pure and rare it was.

"It's worth at least 200 gold moores," said Locke. A hundred moores was too little. He felt that scorpiondrake venom was worth more than that although it was produced by a low-ranked major monster. Locke believed that the venom from the offspring of a high-ranked major monster wouldn't be of poor quality.

"Hmm alright." After thinking for some time, the appraiser agreed to his counteroffer. In addition to the high-quality venom, Locke had also promised to sell him more once every fortnight. He would earn more from this in the long run.

Locke had gained 200 gold moores from the venom and 300 gold moores from the potions today. Of course, the money he'd gotten from the potions didn't all belong to him, only around a hundred did. He couldn't tell if those casters in the diplomatic mission were powerful or not, but they were all experienced chemists and alchemists.

Locke regained a little confidence after earning 300 gold moores in one afternoon. When he returned to the mansion, he gave Lia and Suzanne 50 each. Both of them had already started going for classes in the same school as Kristin, which was called Light of Franz.

Light of Franz was one of the top academies in Princeton and it was well-known for accepting only female students. Besides that, it was also one of the very few academies that taught impetus and magic. The academy would test whether the students had the potential for impetus or magic in the second semester after their enrolment, while the first mainly focused on teaching basic knowledge and noble etiquette.

Locke's savings were used up so quickly because he had to pay for Lia and Suzanne's tuition fees. Fortunately, he only had to pay for their fees at the start of the year. So, he just needed to take care of their living expenses after that.

On Tuesday, Locke walked into the academy's library on Angelina's advice. She was currently carrying out an important experiment with her tutor, so she was tied up at the moment. Otherwise, she would've followed him to the library. She knew more about the Sanctum and the Hall of Knights compared to him, after all.

"The main reason why Shalor's guardian caster didn't take action was that he was bound by the Sanctum's rules." Angelina told Locke an anecdote that he'd never heard of before.

"What are the rules of the Sanctum?" Locke asked.

"The Sanctum and the Hall of Knights have restricted Ritters from making a move on ordinary people. Without it, they could easily slaughter an entire division of soldiers all by themselves."

"An entire division" Locke knew that a high-rank Knecht could fight against an entire cavalry platoon by himself, and it was still considered normal. But how could a Ritter face a division that was made up of tens of thousands of soldiers alone?

In search of the answer, Locke went to the book management office in the library. On the staff member's suggestion, he went to the innermost area on the third floor. Students were only allowed to go up until the third floor of the library, so Locke had no permission to go to the fourth and fifth floors.

Nevertheless, the library was as big as a small sports field. He would probably need to take several decades to finish reading the books on one of the floors. Ever since school started, the library always had lots of visitors. But it wasn't crowded as the students were scattered in different areas in the huge library. He couldn't see anyone else at the corner that he was currently at. The nearest student to him was five bookshelves away. After looking around, he took out a book from the shelf.

Based on the quality of the paper, the book should be from hundreds of years ago. The bottom corner of the book was relatively thin; its pages had probably been frequently flipped by a lot of people before. The script didn't seem Aomarian, but the characters were somewhat similar, so Locke could still manage to understand the words.

As he opened the book that was called 'Glossaria Magica', the first chapter on casters attracted his attention.

'Csters are a group of quirky and powerful people, but they're still humans. They don't have three heads nor six arms, just extraordinary knowledge. Casters of the same level aren't necessarily equally as powerful. Only one factor dictates their strength: their knowledge. A more knowledgeable caster isn't necessarily more powerful, but a more powerful caster is definitely more knowledgeable.

'The word caster is but a general term for magic users. Next, I'll introduce several mainstream magic users, and I hope that it'll be a great help to the readers. Wizards are the very first casters to exist. It has been theorised that they used to perform human sacrifice in ancient times, and the usage of spells was accidentally discovered as a result of sacrificial rituals to gods. Interestingly, wizards are now the ones who are most keen on hunting for gods as they are very curious about the various abilities that gods have. Wizards are easily the most eccentric casters because of their occult practices and arcane spellcasting practices. Even so, their power is undeniable. The honoured Mr Douglas, who is a level-six wizard, a level-six astralist, and a level-seven arcanist, is the most powerful person in our world right now, and he is also a wizard.

'Elementalist is the most common profession among magic users. Pyromancers and electromancers have extraordinary combat power, whereas hydromancers and photomancers have extraordinary healing abilities. The sneak attacks by shadowmancers are a nightmare to all powerhouses, and the terramancers' defensive abilities are unstoppable. I've only introduced six of the most mainstream attributes of elemancy, but there are also other attributes such as ferromancy, biomancy and evocation.

'Thaumaturgists are the most cohesive group of people among magic users and they're mostly relegated to clans. The three most well-known thaumaturgy clans in our world right now are the Dragonblood Clan, the Onyx Owl Clan and the Black Crossviper Clan. Thaumaturgists highly value the power of bloodlines and they become stronger by tracing the origins of their bloodline. Generally, the stronger their bloodline is, the stronger they are. Thaumaturgy is also the easiest to start on. As long as one joins a powerful bloodline, one's children will also inherit the power of the bloodline. This is also currently one of the main research topics in the magic community.

'Arcanist is the most popular type of caster; the field was first pioneered by Douglas. Almost all of the magic users regard themselves as arcanists that explore the truth. The level of an arcanist doesn't represent the level of their power but rather the reserves of their own knowledge. It is entirely possible for a level-two magic user to be a level-three arcanist, or even a level-one arcanist. Some fools of those who pursue power will underestimate arcanists. No matter how strong a group of people are, they are still just human. Back during a planar war, Douglas was attacked by six others on the same level as him, and he actually managed to cast Nihilus, a level-seven spell, even though he was just a level-six wizard. His fame is well deserved given how wise he is. It was also in that year that the Astrian calendar came into use.

'Besides that, there are also other caster disciplines like astralists, summoners, et cetera. If you come across a wizard one day, please don't provoke them for they might retaliate with a curse using just a strand of your hair. If you come across elementalists, be ready to suffer a heatwave or a blizzard with just a wave of the hand if you cause them offence. Thaumaturgists can turn into a giant monster and eat you at will. If you're lucky enough to encounter arcanists, then you can be at ease as they are wise and reasonable scholars. They would just take samples of your flesh and blood for research at most, although the process of it would be a little painful.

'Penned by, Brenden, a level-three arcanist, Chanter of Flames on 4th day of the 4th Month, Year 876.'

A note at the bottom right corner of the page indicated that the casters with titles, such as 'Chanter of Flames', were level-three casters at the very least.